Palestinian detainees told Euro-Med Monitor that Israeli civilians were permitted to watch and laughingly film them being tortured and abused by Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army allowed groups of Israeli civilians to witness Palestinian detainees being tortured, and to film the crimes on their own phones, according to shocking testimonies received by the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
In a press release on Monday, the rights group shared testimonies from recently released Palestinian detainees stating that “groups of ten to twenty Israeli civilians at a time were permitted to watch and laughingly film Palestinian prisoners and detainees in their underwear while Israeli army soldiers subjected them to physical abuse.”
This abuse included “beating them with metal batons, electric sticks, and pouring hot water on their heads. The detainees were also verbally abused.”
These detainees were arrested during ground incursions by Israeli forces into the Gaza Strip and held for varying periods of time inside two detention centers: one located in the Zikim area on the northern border of the Gaza Strip, and another affiliated with the Naqab prison in southern Israel.
“This is the first time that these illegal practices have come to the attention of Euro-Med Monitor,” the organization said.
“It adds a new crime to the list of those committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and specifically against prisoners and detainees who are subjected to cruel torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and denials of a fair trial, among other atrocities.”
Filmed Abuse Uploaded to Social Media
Omar Abu Mudallala, 43, told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout…as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days.”
He said Israeli soldiers “brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture.”
The soldiers, he explained, told the civilians, “‘These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October,’ while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.”
Abu Mudallala said, “This happened five times while I was being held.” He said he was blindfolded the first time, but in the other four incidents, “we were not wearing blindfolds…I saw them (the civilians) all four times with my own eyes.”
Another detainee, known as DH, aged 42, told Euro-Med Monitor that “Israeli civilians were brought to witness the abuse and torture that we were subjected to…”
“They also took pictures of us and post them on social media apps, particularly “TikTok,” with the soldiers themselves (who) did the same,” he said.
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Violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention
The rights group said the Israeli army’s torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is illegal under the Rome Statute and constitutes crimes against humanity.
“The army’s staging of these abuses as entertainment for Israeli civilians and subsequent photography of the victims amounts to a grave violation of the dignity of these individuals, as well as the commission of war crimes,” it stated.
“They brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture”: IDF torture of Palestinian prisoners is turned into entertainment for Israeli viewers https://t.co/VYKj0QD6Mm
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) February 12, 2024
Euro-Med Monitor further asserted that Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees “are blatant violations of international conventions and standards, particularly the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.”
The Convention “forbids an occupying authority from transferring prisoners from the occupied territory to detention facilities on its territory, as well as torturing, attacking, or otherwise degrading the human dignity of those detained.”
